Olympic baby

The Olympics are underway and today there was women's pairs diving. The baby, who usually scorns TV (on days when you really need a break you find yourself wishing he'd just sit and stare at CBeebies for 20min but no such luck...) suddenly paid attention. He gaped as each pair of divers took to the diving board and bounced, then twisted and turned before hitting the water and appearing underwater to resurface and make their way to the side, anxiously watching the judging screens for their marks. He sat on my knee and stayed still and attentive throughout, seeming to espcially enjoy the slow-motion replays and the underwater sequences. I wondered if it was because of his swimming classes, if he could see that it was something akin to what he had experienced. Thus, his bespoke commentary by yours truly featured Water Babies-style lingo. "Divers, Ready, Go!" I exhorted, followed by "Wheeeeee - Splash!"(a little known technical expression used in diving) and, as they swam to the side and reached out for the edge, "Hold On, Hold On, Hold On."
The divers ignored this last safety warning, instead grabbing the edge only briefly and hauling themselves out in quick graceful moves. Still, I forgive them. They're probably past Intermediate One. I expect they're in the Advanced class.

The Iron Baby

The baby loves strawberries, as well as other soft fruits such as melons, pineapple, etc. He is also getting better at self-feeding - and has 8 teeth - so we started giving him chunks of fruit or whole strawberries so he could hold them himself, bite bits off and eat them. He was very pleased with this as he feels all important and grown up. However, he has now decided to exert his authority over these rebel fruits and he has no mercy. He holds a fruit - strawberries for preference - in his fist and then grips it very hard, while red juice drips down his arm and the berry itself is reduced to a sort of pulp that looks unpleasantly like some sort of crushed internal organ. He then opens his fist, inspects the berry for any last remaining act of defiance and grins when it just lies there, gasping its last breath. Then he shoves it in his mouth, chews rapidly and holds out his red-stained hand for another one.

Don't you step on my blue suede shoes

Today I bought the baby his first pair of shoes. A lot of fussing and cooing went on by the Clarks salespeople, who make a big deal out of it - I am now the proud owner of a photo of him taken by them - sitting on the floor of the shop wearing the new shoes and looking gobsmacked. In the shop we tried to make him 'walk' wearing them, something he is usually keen to do but he just stood, clutching my hands and keeping his feet frozen in place, perhaps feeling somewhat weighed down by them. I let him sit on the floor instead and he tried to remove them.

But once we got home he tried crawling in them and didn't seem to mind them so much. After some lunch we cranked up the music and danced together to Ray Charles singing Hit the Road Jack. He loves being held while you dance and also loves it if you sit near him and dance with your head and arms, he vigorously nods his own head back at you and smiles. My ponytail caused much laughter today because when I 'danced' it flew abut the place and he thought that was very funny.

At the 12 week scan of my pregnancy the ulstrasound revealed a tiny twisting creature. "A dancing baby" said the woman operating the scanner. Today he has his dancing shoes at last - maybe the next pair can be tap shoes.

Boys will be boys

Our baby has a pretty nice collection of toys, and looking them over today I would say 99% of them would be classed 'gender-neutral'. There's not much pink or blue unless its part of a rainbow set of stacking rings etc and there are only two vehicles - a pickup truck and a cement mixer (Bob the Builder toys picked up for 50p in a charity shop) and a few cutesy soft toys.

And yet - his first 'proper' word, reliably produced and firmly linked to the correct object whether in real life, photo, a drawing or even glimpsed on the TV show Top Gear as I surfed through a few channels, is 'car' - pronounced 'ka!' and the two vehicles are very much favourites. I saw him playing with one and made a few engine-like noises which he smiled at. My husband, informed of this, made a few more car noises. Now, when the baby plays with these items, he makes loud 'aaa, aaa, aaa' sounds, something he does with nothing else and which are pretty good copies of the engine noises we made. The childminder suddenly realised he could say 'car' when she held him in her arms near the street and he said it every time one went by. Apart from his colour books his most beloved book right now is a book about tractors - again, one of the very few 'boy' books he has. He ignores the cute soft toys. His Daddy is actually going to go and buy him a little car now because despite his huge interest he doesn't actually even have a toy car and we sort of feel sorry for him.

I don't get it. He's ten months old. He's had no particular encouragement in this direction so far. Is it just innate?!

Rover

The intelligence scale I mentioned a while back (i.e. your newborn is an earthworm, bit dispiriting really) has awarded my child the dubious distinction of being 'a quadruped mammal' by this age. Sort of insulting but then again if you watch the baby...

• He 'walks' on all fours
• He makes a lot of interesting noises to try and communicate though none of them are out-and-out what you'd call proper words
• He understands quite a lot of words though - things like ball, no, sit, up
• He likes feet and shoes, and will chew on either
• He likes waiting by the letterflap for the post to arrive and then chewing on it vigorously so that by the time you get it it's sort of raggedy round the edges
• He is very interested in (other) dogs and any animal
• He likes children and will try to bite them with great love and enthusiasm
• He likes the bins a lot

...so on balance I think maybe the scale has a point.

Walkies!

Dominoes....

... Except now my husband has the Roseola. Sigh. He is now feeling very sorry for himself - and for the baby as he now knows exactly how the poor mite was feeling just a few days ago. 'No wonder he wouldn't eat,' he moaned this evening. 'Awful sore throat.' Bit anoying after all the sites and books chirpily reassured us that adults hardly ever get it, just babies. Apparently 'everyone' is immune after about 4. Ummm, or not?

Really, really praying I am not up next. Enough already.

Down but not for long

The poor baby got Roseola (still no idea how to pronounce it) - a fairly mild virus involving fever and a rash - the fever was sad, he whimpered and looked miserable, felt burning hot and I had to reluctantly get out the Calpol and baby Nurofen - I know fevers are designed to 'burn up' the virus but the possibility of febrile convulsions always scares me... especially when it says in the books 'not to worry, they're really usually harmless, just scary to watch - but dial 999 if it happens...' umm, mixed messages?
Anyway once that stopped he got a rash and looked like a poor little sick monster. He carried on crawling, but in a desultory manner, as though it really wasn't worth the effort and sat about looking sad and weary. He stopped eating altogether and for one day barely drank, not even milk, which was a bit worrying. He somehow looked smaller, as though you need life force to make up the whole of your physical bulk and his was diminished.

But suddenly he turned the corner and woke up - at 2.30 am - full of beans and the joy of life. The rash had reduced quite impressively just overnight. By 3.30am we admitted defeat and allowed him to be awake - he was obviously feeling GREAT as you do after an illness and was keen to get back to exploring. It was almost a relief to watch him pull wine bottles out of the wine rack, huge books out of the bookshelf - which trapped his legs under them and then see how excited he was by a new swing kindly bought for him by his Great-Grandmother, which had arrived while he was languishing.

Normal service resumed.